What has been unfolding in Suwayda is not a tribal clash. It is not a local feud, nor a historical grievance finally boiling over. It is a calculated jihadist incursion, orchestrated by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), executed under the thin veil of tribal affiliation, and blessed—silently or otherwise—by a global media machine that dares not speak its name.
What the world is witnessing is a holy war. And like all such wars waged by theocrats throughout history, its first victims are the defenseless, the unarmed—the faithful who refuse to bow.
Why the Druze Are Being Targeted
The Druze of Suwayda are being attacked not because they posed a threat, not because they sought expansion, and certainly not because they fired the first shot. They are being hunted because they refused to submit to Jolani’s jihadist rule. That is their crime.
This did not begin with a skirmish. It began with the targeted kidnapping of a Druze produce seller—an act of deliberate terror designed to bait the Druze into an unwinnable war. What followed was not spontaneous. Over 50,000 Arab tribal fighters, armed, organized, and chanting jihadist slogans, poured into Suwayda.
They came not as tribes, but as foot soldiers of a religious war machine that has used this playbook time and again: bait, overwhelm, dominate—and then claim victimhood. Just as they do in the case of Israel.
The Media’s Euphemisms: Complicity by Language
The media calls it a “Druze-Bedouin clash”—as if both sides arrived equally armed, equally guilty. As if this were a tribal feud, not a jihadist invasion. Outlets like The New York Times, BBC, and Associated Press reduce a religious war to palatable euphemism. They sanitize it with phrases like “sectarian tensions,” “historical grievances,” “complex dynamics,” and “mutual hostilities.”
They erase the HTS banners, ignore the black-clad militants in combat gear, and suppress the footage—the chants of Allahu Akbar, the triumphal cries of conquest, the boastful declarations of kafir blood spilled.
They won’t show you the babies with their throats slit. But for those with the stomach to witness a replay of October 7th’s orgy of death, the footage exists—bloodshed glorified and broadcast in real time by jihadis eager to brand themselves as holy war influencers.
And yet, the views these horrors receive pale in comparison to the clicks and shares garnered by Israel-hatred and Jewish vilification, which dominate social media algorithms with disturbing consistency.
The media won’t tell you about the Druze women dragged from their homes with their children—most never to be seen again. They won’t mention the beheadings, the ritual slaughter, or the parading of mutilated bodies as trophies.
Because to do so would force the West to act. It would strip away the false veneer from HTS and reveal the truth: these so-called “reformed Islamists” are no different from the Taliban, from Hamas, from ISIS. They spit in the faces of their Western enablers and tell them it’s rain—and the West, desperate to believe it, nods along.
The refined Europeans endure the daily humiliations: assaults on their daughters, contempt for their churches, the steady loss of safety and sovereignty. They tolerate rampant crime and “no-go zones.” They polish news reports to obscure the holy war being waged against them—recasting jihad as isolated incidents, lone wolves, or cloaking it all with that favorite euphemism: “Asian perpetrators.”
Their leaders are more concerned with not offending the enemy within than with defending their people, their heritage, or their little girls.
The Global Pattern: One War, Many Fronts
This is not local. It is global. The same pattern appears again and again.
On October 7, 2023 Hamas crossed into Israel and butchered families in their homes. They raped women and dragged the wounded into Gaza. They burned babies alive. They did it not in the name of politics—but in the name of Allah.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram and ISWAP slaughter Christians, enslave women, and declare caliphates while the world calls it “extremism.” In Libya, Salafi militias filled the vacuum after Gaddafi, targeting Sufis, Christians, and minorities. In Iraq and Syria, al-Qaeda became ISIS, then HTS. The uniforms change. The slogans evolve. The doctrine remains unchanged: infiltrate, radicalize, terrorize, and rule—in the name of Islamic purity.
Even in the West—in France, in Sweden, in the UK, and now in the United States—we see the early symptoms: no-go zones, honor killings, antisemitic rallies, and the celebration of jihadist victories abroad.
How Jihad Wears a Tribal Mask
Western analysts, desperate to find a “palatable” Islamist to negotiate with, paint Julani as pragmatic—less monstrous than ISIS, more manageable than Assad.
But is he?
Julani has done nothing new—he merely put on a suit, declared “better days are here again,” and the West swooned over an unrepentant jihadi. Now he stands center stage, crafting a false narrative of peaceful coexistence, all while pursuing the same genocidal goals. Under the guise of “ethnic disputes,” infidels are targeted and eliminated.
The massacre in Suwayda was not a tribal flare-up—it was the calculated weaponization of “Bedouin identity” as a human shield for holy war. HTS-aligned media circulate videos glorifying the “liberation” of Druze lands—lands they deem kafir.
This is not justice. It is conquest.
The West’s Silence amid Druze Isolation
The West is too cowardly—or too compromised—to call the slaughter in Suwayda what it is: genocide.
This fiction demands the whitewashing of the perpetrators and the abandonment of their victims—namely, the Druze. But the West will not backtrack. Partly because they love bullies, and partly because the Druze are of no practical use to them.
The Druze have no lobbying machine. They are not fashionable in the NGO circuit. They are not backed by a foreign state. So they can be ignored. They can be lied about. And when they are butchered, they can be buried in the passive voice of headlines: “clashes erupted,” “tensions escalated,” “fighting broke out.”
But the truth stands: the Druze did not invade HTS territory. They did not instigate an ethnic war. They are defending their mountain, their families, their faith—and paying for it in blood.
Israel: The Buttress of the West
As jihad spreads and the West loses its footing, Israel stands alone—not merely as a nation, but as a civilizational buttress.
Geographically, it is the frontier.
Morally, it is the litmus test.
Militarily, it is the shield.
Just as Israel faced seven Arab armies in 1948, 1967, and 1973, so too does it now confront the barbarism of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and HTS-backed militias on every front. Yet it does not flinch. Israel alone came to the aid of the Syrian Druze.
Israeli intelligence protects Western cities. Its counterterrorism tactics save lives far beyond its borders. And its resilience—born of exile, forged in the Holocaust, guided by prophetic tradition and spiritual clarity—reminds a flailing West that the value of a civilization lies in the courage and principles it refuses to abandon.
The Betrayal of Israel
The lesson of abandoning Israel is not merely geopolitical—it is civilizational. To forsake Israel is to sever a core branch of Western identity.
Israel is not only the West’s buttress; it is its mirror, reflecting the cost of erasing cultural memory, national pride, and loyalty to the people who helped shape your moral and intellectual foundation.
The War Is Here. What Comes Next?
Suwayda is not an isolated story. October 7th is the Suwayda slaughter. And the Suwayda slaughter is October 7th.
It is the front line in the same war playing out in Gaza, in Nigeria, in Iraq, and in the suburbs of Paris and Berlin. The same theology. The same strategy. The same hatred for Jews, Christians, Yazidis, Druze, Hindus, Animists, and free people everywhere.
Wherever radical Islam meets weak governance and an unarmed minority, the result is always the same: slaughter, rape, and religious cleansing.
Suwayda is not the first. It will not be the last. And if we continue refusing to see it, the front line will not stay over there.
The Final Warning
The time for euphemism is over.
The time for cowardice is over.
This is a holy war.
And the first weapon we must reclaim is truth.
Randy Settenbrinois a writer, artist, and public intellectual whose work bridges theology, philosophy, and psychology. He is a passionate advocate for Israel and Jewish-Christian solidarity, and the founder of the Historic Blue Moon Hotel—recognized by National Geographic as one of the 150 most unique projects in the Western Hemisphere. A father of IDF soldiers, Torah scholars, and holy daughters, his work is devoted to truth, faith, and cultural restoration.